UNBC researchers at Max Blouw Quesnel River Research Centre held an open house on Saturday to discuss initial findings from the day of the tailings pond breach.
Monitoring has continued since day one, and Manager Sam Albers says his team monitored a plume which became evident within a few hours following the breach:
“Some of the changes that we have seen, visually its very stark the contrast between normal clear water, and then all of a sudden the river more or less turns green. so we’ve seen that plume, migrating down in front of Likely and then downstream into Quesnel River”
Albers says despite the huge impact on the community, he is glad they were able to mobilize a team so quickly to the area. Researchers say the extent of damage done to the watershed will likely last for several decades, and the plume that was found was composed of particles with a diameter of 1 micron. Which is 50 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
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